3 productivity secrets from small business leaders

3 productivity secrets from small business leaders

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“Productivity is the only way to achieve maximum results in a minimum amount of time,” shares Laura Stack during a recent SalesforceLIVE event. As owner of the Productivity Pro, and author of Doing the Right Things Right, Stack knows a thing or two about productive habits and skills. However, she’s not the only one. We recently spoke with AppExchange partners NewVoiceMedia, CloudCraze and HeyWire, a Salesforce company, about this achievement-happy topic. We asked these partners, as well as Laura Stack, about their experiences boosting productivity in the workplace, and how others can do the same. Here’s a look at their best tidbits.

1. Join productivity with culture

Productivity is impacted by many factors, and culture is one of them. That’s why CloudCraze chose to run as a flat organization, in which any employee can approach the CEO and executives at any time. “We do not have layers. You can get to the right person, and get a decision quickly,” shared Phil Weinmeister, Salesforce MVP and Product Director of Customer Engagement at CloudCraze, “This dramatically reduces the time needed to deliver on a task or project.”

CloudCraze also enables employees to work efficiently by providing the right tools and culture for a virtual workforce. “We enable productivity when employees are working from home, the hotel or the office,” shares Phil, “Alone, the right culture and the right technology will not necessarily boost productivity, but determining how to cultivate and balance can bear some serious cloud-based fruit.”

2. Gamify productivity

March Madness may be on our minds when we think of gamification, but for NewVoiceMedia, gamification takes place off the court and in the sales and service departments. “Gamification techniques uncover the habits of top-performing sales reps and service agents,” shares Richard Dumas, Regional Vice President of Demand Marketing at NewVoiceMedia, “We replicate those best practices across the rest of their team.” The brand uses a combination of intelligent coaching prompts and game mechanics to boost productivity.

According to Stack, one of the core areas of productivity is a focus on team. “How do you spend time coaching, training, motivating, and managing the people with whom you work?” asks Stack. With gamification, not only can productivity be coached, trained and integrated into an organization, but it can be tracked and measured to motivate employees to be even better at what they do.

3. Build productivity apps

According to HeyWire, a company that connects customers to businesses using SMS texting, over 50% of people today would prefer to text with the companies they do business with versus talking on the phone. “Conversational texting improves productivity for salespeople and contact center agents,” says Meredith Flynn-Ripley, VP of Product Management for Salesforce LiveMessage, and formerly CEO of HeyWire. Taking that approach in house for their own teams, HeyWire boosts employee productivity by using their own Salesforce apps — LiveText Agent and Business Messenger — to text with customers for support and feedback; as well as text with prospects for sales. “By using LiveText as a sales channel to follow up on initial sales inquiries, we’re closing deals upwards of 25% faster than following up via phone or email,” shares Meredith.

HeyWire isn’t alone. NewVoiceMedia is also using their own app, Motivate, to improve service levels (watch the video about it here). Not a technology company? Not a problem. Technology today enables anyone and everyone to build apps. Consider how you can use and create technology to bring productivity to the forefront.

Challenge your own work habits, look at new ways to be productive, and encourage your team to do the same. By working together, as Stack says, you can start “doing the right things right.” That’s the ultimate productivity secret.